MAY 2019 - AudioFile
An ensemble cast of narrators gives each student in this 1990s high school drama a unique voice that reflects each character. The story is told through the notes passed between students. Sound effects, such as the opening of a note and the scratching of a pencil on paper at the beginning of each chapter, help set the scenes. Narrator Taylor Spreitler creates a striking voice for Tara, who dreams of becoming the star of the high school musical and eventually leaving her hometown as she strikes out for the big city. Teen listeners will be intrigued by a retro story that pinpoints the trends of the time but also finds commonalities with the ways students communicate and navigate the tumultuous years of high school today. M.D. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
01/29/2018
The year is 1991, when teens didn’t communicate through texts but through handwritten notes stuffed into lockers, desks, and mailboxes. In a novel that captures the lingo, fads, and teenage preoccupations of the period, actor and TV writer Boren makes a charismatic debut as he traces the ups and downs of Tara Maureen Murphy’s life through notes exchanged between friends and enemies. Although Tara is dying to get out of her “two-bit town” and study acting at NYU, she intends to enjoy her senior year, getting star roles in the school’s plays, being half of a “supercouple” with her hockey-player boyfriend, and reuniting with her best friend, who has been away for the summer. Things don’t go as she expects. Tara’s year is full of drama, but most of it occurs outside the theater. A brash, egotistical heroine determined to get what she wants at any cost, Tara suffers setbacks at every turn. Even if she doesn’t win readers’ hearts, she will make them smile with her conniving antics, sarcastic wit, and tremendous resiliency. Ages 12–up. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"Matt Boren brilliantly captures the voices of students way back in 1992 with humor and wit and a unique ability to shift from freshman to senior, boy to girl, cheerleader to theater geek. In this hilarious novel, Boren adeptly proves that the more things change, the more things stay the same."–Kelly Ripa
"Folded Notes from High School is heartwarming, hilarious storytelling that might give you some uncomfortable pangs of recognition. This is how you love, scheme, fight and forgive in the high heat of puberty." —Patton Oswalt
"This tale about Tara’s over-the-top rise and demise has a playful retro pop culture context....Readers will love to hate the talented and terrible Tara." —School Library Journal
"In a novel that captures the lingo, fads, and teenage preoccupations of the period, actor and TV writer Boren makes a charismatic debut as he traces the ups and downs of Tara Maureen Murphy’s life....Even if she doesn’t win readers’ hearts, [Tara] will make them smile with her conniving antics, sarcastic wit, and tremendous resiliency." —Publishers Weekly
"Folded Notes from High School is the ‘90s YA novel you’ve been waiting for....This one’s for all the readers who fawned over both Danny Zuko and Aaron Samuels." —HelloGiggles
"If a '90s Regina George exchanged notes with a freshman boy in school, this would be it."–PopSugar
"Folded Notes from High School is like a portal into the lives of teenagers past. It's a hilarious tale of one girl trying to be good at life, and relatably failing time and time again." —Adi Alsaid, author of Let's Get Lost and Never Always Sometimes
“Set in 1991, Folded Notes from High School transports readers back in time to a high school filled with a little less technology but no less drama.” –VOYA
“In the age before Snapchat and Instagram, Tara Murphy rules South High’s social scene armed with only her pen and strategically hidden notes…a great read for slightly older teens who want a glimpse into the increasingly distant—though not so different—past.” —Booklist
School Library Journal
02/01/2018
Gr 9 Up—Tara is beautiful, talented, and popular. She only dates the hottest guys at school, and her best friends are the kinds of girls who get voted Best Dressed and Most Likely to Succeed. She is up for the lead in all of the school plays. She is also benevolent when it suits her, but is just as likely to crush a classmate if crossed. In other words, Tara is a mean girl; talented and driven but selfish and manipulative, too, and she's desperate for her senior year to be perfect. But in this narrative, the leading lady's supporting cast stops playing their parts. Tara's hot, hockey-playing boyfriend gets caught cheating, her best friend finds a new gal pal, and the freshman she takes under her wing finds his own way into the inner circle. Set during the pre-cell phone 1991–1992 school year and told via a series of intricately folded notes passed through the school day, stuffed into lockers, and snuck into backpacks, this tale about Tara's over-the-top rise and demise has a playful retro pop culture context. A found letter, sent from Tara to Matt, the freshman upstart, after she has left for college, promises a continuation of the series. VERDICT A campy romp through early 90s culture and slang. Like early-season Rachel on the TV show Glee, readers will love to hate the talented and terrible Tara.—Jennifer Miskec, Longwood University, Farmville, VA
MAY 2019 - AudioFile
An ensemble cast of narrators gives each student in this 1990s high school drama a unique voice that reflects each character. The story is told through the notes passed between students. Sound effects, such as the opening of a note and the scratching of a pencil on paper at the beginning of each chapter, help set the scenes. Narrator Taylor Spreitler creates a striking voice for Tara, who dreams of becoming the star of the high school musical and eventually leaving her hometown as she strikes out for the big city. Teen listeners will be intrigued by a retro story that pinpoints the trends of the time but also finds commonalities with the ways students communicate and navigate the tumultuous years of high school today. M.D. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-02-05
The labyrinthine social lives of 1990s high school students unfurl as they write and exchange notes.Tara plans on netting the role of Sandy in the school's production of Grease. But when a new ninth-grader named Matt lands the male lead of Danny while Tara is passed over for her coveted role, the ball is set in motion for a year of offstage drama. Told entirely in epistolary format as notes passed back and forth between characters, all of whom seem to be white, this debut novel effectively captures the voice of insecure, duplicitous Tara, whose penchant for cutesy phrases and colloquial writing style are juxtaposed against her poisonous angling in both her romantic relationships and friendships as well as her pointed, cruel othering of her Jewish theater rival, Joy. While the portrayal of the 1990s suburban New England experience is accurate, replete with mainstream cultural references of the time, it's uncertain whether these will be of any interest to today's teens. Equally questionable is whether readers will connect with a protagonist so absorbed with the relentless ping-pong machinations of her peer dynamics that she imagines herself a latter-day Anne Frank.Steeped in nostalgia, this exhausting novel might have been better geared for adults. (Fiction. 14-18)
